Marlène Koffi

IEA – Can you tell us a little bit about your life story, what got you interested in economics, and how you decided to pursue an academic career?

Marlène – I grew up and completed most of my schooling in Ivory Coast. I started university studies with preparatory classes in Mathematics and Physics. This is a two-year intensive program, equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree. Following this, I was admitted to the School of Statistics and Economics of Abidjan (ENSEA Cote d’Ivoire).

It was during my time at ENSEA that my interest in economics started to develop. I was particularly captivated by the “stories.” By stories, I refer to how through economic models, economists offered a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of various economic agents. This fascination led me to decide that after completing my master’s studies, I would pursue a career as an economist.

I became aware of the Ph.D. program in Economics offered by the University of Montreal. This program was highly suitable for students from French-speaking countries. Additionally, the university had experience evaluating grades from African schools. This was important because the grading system in our schools tended to be rigorous, requiring a contextual interpretation.

Fortunately, I was accepted into the Ph.D. program in Economics at the University of Montreal, marking the beginning of my “true” journey in economics.

IEA – In your recent work you study the gender gap in recognition of women’s innovative ideas in comparison to men, can you briefly summarize your findings? What made you interested in this topic?

Marlène – One of my primary research interests revolves around understanding gender disparities in science and innovation. Throughout my academic journey, I have been involved in scientific fields where women are underrepresented. Being part of this group, I feel challenged to address the difficulty they may encounter. Moreover, there are numerous instances in history where women have not received proper recognition for their scientific achievements, such as Eunice Newton Foote and Rosalind Franklin, to name a few.

However, two critical pieces of information were missing for effective policymaking: the overall prevalence of gender disparities and their current status. Therefore, in my recent works, I aim to shed light on the differences in how researchers acknowledge and value women’s contributions. To accomplish this, I construct a counterfactual set of potential citations and compare it to the authors’ actual citations. This allows me to evaluate who is more likely to be excluded when crediting past works. My findings indicate that women are more likely to be overlooked than men. A significant contributing factor to this omission is the history of publications. Women with fewer publications than men tend to be undervalued, resulting in the potential oversight or undervaluation of young female contributions compared to their male counterparts. I also observe differences in this omission across fields, with a more pronounced gap in sub-fields with relatively fewer women. Moreover, this omission tends to be gendered, as women are less likely to exclude other women.